‘Time for the ol’ six-six-six,’ guffawed a guard as he led the pale, drawn man, flanked by two dementors, down row upon row of cells.
Once, Draco might have bit back snidely, Did you know there are actually sixty seconds in one minute? It’s true, you idiot. Now, however, he walked with his head lowered, eyes flicking intuitively to those in the cells around him, though he tried to keep them pinned to the floor. Moans and shrieks and mutters, wild hands groping through bars, bloodshot eyes following your back, promising to haunt your dreams, were common enough for Azkaban. Even so, Draco still found it at the least disturbing to walk a new row of cells he hadn’t seen before, forced to see the mangled half-humans within.
The silent ones were older ‘correctional residents’, as the euphemism went, but the cells were thick with those who hadn’t quite settled in just yet; they were the ones who shrieked for hours, gurgled and writhed and seethed. Worse, even, the ones who wanted to talk to you. Perhaps they were insane, perhaps not; but it was impossible to retreat to anywhere but the back of your shallow cell, and even there was not a safe place to linger for long, because you could bet a dementor would be by in minutes to see to it you were caked off the far wall, or a corner, and out in the open once more, hands where they could be seen.
Draco was one of the sanest. He knew it instinctively, though a quote he had read in some long-forgotten book at times would prod his subconscious: ‘Sanity is statistical.’ Which meant, of course, that reality was determined by a majority; and poor souls that were in the few, lost in their different versions of the world, were mad. Will I finally know when I’ve gone off the deep end? he’d wondered many a night or day (such trivial information, like the time, was of no importance here). Or will I still see everyone else as raving lunatics and think I’m the only sane one? It was awful having to think such thoughts, awful to have no one to affirm his own authenticity. Draco had a theory that the new admissions, the rational ones such as himself, were purposely put in a block with the biggest loonies of the bunch, in an effort to convert them to complacency as quickly as possible. No one to talk to or identify with makes the medicine go down that much quicker, that much more painless for the management.
‘You hear that, Malfoy? You got six minutes and sixty-six seconds. Tha’s it.’ The guard chuckled coldly again, no humour in him.
In spite of everything, this time Draco managed a reply. ‘Did you know that there are sixty seconds in one minute? So it’s actually seven minutes and six seconds.’ The guard thought about it for a moment, realised both his intelligence and authority had been trashed, and glared. He pushed Draco roughly to remind him of the latter, muttering darkly about ‘uppity’ inmates.
It was true, though, that Draco had obsessed over this number, not seven minutes and six seconds, for the last month, ever since he had learned the visitation rules. It was such a small number. Such a small amount of time.
‘Draco!’ Astoria hissed. ‘How could you come home like this—in front of the children!’ He shrugged, and stumbled towards the corner where his son and daughter were huddled, Scorpius protecting the younger with his arms. He tried to reach out to them with open arms and take them in a hug, but he somehow managed to collapse on the floor instead.
‘’M’sorry,’ he mumbled, trying to sort himself out. ‘M’kay, really.’ Astoria shook her head in unspeakable pain, lips clenched hard, like when she was trying not to cry.
‘I’m so—fed up with you!’ she whispered tightly, crossing her arms over her chest, making no move to help him off the floor. She breathed deeply, nostrils flaring, wiped at her eyes—something had gotten caught in them, she told Scorpius—and then ushered the children up to bed. ‘I didn’t want you to be there when he came home.’ Draco could just barely make out his wife’s words as she tucked them in, lit the night light and shut the door behind them.
He could watch her coming down the hall out of the long, tinted windows. His hands tightened on each other, shame burning. He was chained to his chair in a locked room flanked by dementors on all sides. He was dressed like a convict. Correction: he was a convict. And Astoria made it clear she felt he deserved everything, if not more, than what he had received.
She herself was dressed like a mourner, though what she mourned, besides the first bad decision she had made in agreeing to marry him, it wasn’t clear. But her clothes were all wrong, somehow; not altogether fitting for a funeral, nor certainly this occasion. She wore a tight-fitting black dress, lace cupping the sleeves and collar; sleeves full length but bottom skirt hem falling immodestly high; black silk gloves clasping a matching clutch bag; and then on her head, a ridiculous black hat, sheer black lace veil spilling forth from it in a square over her face. The strange effect was marred by her lipstick, which was a disquieting, too-bright shade of red-orange, and her eyes, which were coated in blue and whose lashes were unnaturally long. Draco watched her progression down the green mile, eyes downcast but lips upturned in what almost seemed to be satisfaction.
Just as she reached the door, an appreciative wolf whistle from one of the human guards made her pause suddenly, as if she had stumbled. Her eyes narrowed, but she was obviously intimidated by the uncouth men pressing her from all around, dementors always nearby. Draco focused on the table before him to avoid her accusatory gaze. He felt the metallic heat of her anger as he kept his silence. What can I do? he wanted to ask her. I’m just as helpless as you are, maybe even more so. I signed away my rights as a man that night six months ago…
The pub was a pit. Draco didn’t bother to deny the fact to himself. But it suited his needs, and that was good enough. It was a Muggle establishment featuring a long bar stocked with darkish liquids guaranteed to get you hammered in two, one of many of its kind that flanked London’s dark streets. No one ever recognised him, and that was as he had planned. Well, that was as he had planned the first time, when he had realised he couldn’t go to the Leaky Cauldron with his blacklisted name and sunk reputation, but afterwards he had fallen into habit, bleary eyes searching the cityscape until they saw the familiar red sign.
The bartender recognised him, and Draco appreciated that; it saved effort. He could drag his wreck of a body to the furthest stool from the door and hunch there in silence, like so many others did after work, while something was drawn up from the tap and then slid down towards him. Draco never knew what he was downing but never felt the need to ask. This place was for failures like himself. Failures were indiscriminate in their misery, so long as it was complete. And it was.
That night had to have been the worst, because he could remember the least of it. There was the hazy succession of drinks, dim bar-light filtered through amber liquid, huge glass inexplicably emptying again and again, until finally it didn’t refill itself. The slurred demand. And then Draco was hoisted head-first out the door, to lie in a sloshy heap on the icy ground. Confusion and numbness in equal measure, followed by a sudden wave of anger he couldn’t place—perhaps it stemmed from that gnawing feeling of dissatisfaction.
WHAM. Pain. Dulled somewhat, but it made Draco gasp and clutch at his side nonetheless. A guffaw, as the foot swung back for another go. Thick, swollen fingers fumbled into robes, out of place here, until they felt smooth hawthorn. A slow, swerving withdrawal of the wand. A muddle of angry words. A green light.
Six Aurors were waiting for him when he arrived home, six minutes later.
The door opened with an iron hiss to reveal his wife. He heard from somewhere just out of sight a timer being started. Finally the moment had arrived.
He kept his eyes trained downwards at his clenched white hands, though at the corner of his vision he watched her closely. She carefully sat down across from him at the table, black silk hands busy with the clasp of her bag.
‘You have to sign these.’ Apparently she hadn’t been fiddling with the bag as a diversion, but because there were rolls of parchment inside. She withdrew them, as well as a black raven’s quill, and slid them towards him on the table, hands shaking ever so slightly. They met each other’s gaze at last.
Her voice was subdued but controlled. ‘It’s a notice of divorce.’ What? It was impossible. They had never been a happy couple, even on their first dates, but this was not how it was supposed to work. She was supposed to wait for him dutifully. She was supposed to be there to pick him up at the end of the year, the picture of a devoted wife.
She wasn’t supposed to be a backstabbing slut.
Somehow, Draco managed a smile and felt Astoria stiffen across from him. He held the quill tightly in his left hand and carefully made an elaborate flourish on the dotted line. Draco Malfoy was officially divorced.
He handed the rolls back to her and her quill, barely resisting the urge to stab her gloved hand with it. Of course she was wearing gloves. Because beneath them there was no wedding ring, was there?
The silence stretched, and Astoria’s growing irritation became more evident. ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she hissed venomously suddenly. ‘I won’t say I’m sorry. I’m happy to be free of you, you bastard.’
Draco continued to smile coldly, knowing it infuriated her, as she stood up.
‘You still got five minutes and then some,’ the guard who was timekeeping called.
‘That’s fine,’ Astoria called back over her shoulder as she waited for the door to open, failing to keep the tightness out of her voice. ‘This visit is over.’
He listened to the click, click, click of her shiny black shoes on the linoleum corridor, until the noise was so faint it might have been his fingernail tapping on the table.
Sixty-Six by Rhi for HP
Story Notes:
Note: Rating is for brief language only.
Chapter Endnotes: Oh, by the way, the quote "Sanity is statistical" is from 1984 by George Orwell.